Tryst
by AnnabethLuna
Summary: Risa has never truly loved anyone before. But at this harvest camp, with Connor Lassiter, she's willing to let her guard down, and make the end of her life as she knows it the best that it can possibly be. Risa's perspective of the bathroom scene in Unwind. Rated T for kissing and thoughts on unwinding and death.


Risa Ward doesn't know if she's ever loved anyone before.

At a state home, one grows up mostly alone. She had a few friends, sure, and of course Mr. Durkin, but she learned early on not to count on ever having anyone but herself.

Now, though, things are different.

Now, as she huddles in this cold, tiny bathroom stall at a harvest camp of all places, kissing Connor Lassiter, running her hands up and down his arms and her fingers through his hair; now, letting him hold her so tightly she forgets where she lets off and he begins, letting him comfort her in the face of their impending demise, she thinks – she knows – that she loves him. That she's _in_ love with him.

And that knowledge scares her senseless.

Truthfully, she's probably felt this way – somewhere deep down – ever since she first met Connor, running into the woods after their escape, when they teamed up to take out the cop after them. But she's never let herself admit it until now. Even now she doesn't _want_ to admit it – but want no longer has anything to do with it. The knowledge has risen up so far inside her that she chokes on it every time she sees him, that when she lets him hold her like this she can no longer deny what she feels.

Because now, that part of her deep inside her, that part that was always guarded from anyone on the outside – that part is gone. Stripped away. She's left bare inside, vulnerable to hurt – and they're at a harvest camp. She knows that sooner or later, that hurt will come. And it will be worse pain than anything she's ever felt before.

She kisses him again, more deeply, trying not to think about this. This time – these precious few minutes between her breakfast hour and his – is the only time that she feels whole. And when any moment, she knows that she will be physically taken apart, she lives for the feeling of fullness that she gets with Connor. This time is not for words or thoughts about unwinding.

She skims her hands across his collarbone and face, brushing his cheeks lightly with trembling fingers. There are bruises on his face and neck, the ones on his neck shaped vaguely like fingers. Horrible thoughts begin to rise up, along with a dreadful suspicion, and she knows somehow how this came about.

"What happened?" she asks anyway.

"Nothing important," he murmurs, leaning down to kiss her again, stifling her next words. But she knows, from the casual brush-off and the shifty look in his eyes, moments before he closes them, that it was something to do with Roland.

Ordinarily, perhaps, she would accuse him of hiding things from her, of keeping secrets. Their time, though, is too short as it is. He's right – in this situation, with their unwinding creeping closer and closer and no escape in sight for them, how his bruises came about isn't important.

She shoves the thoughts of unwinding away, as well as her mixture of emotions at the bruises splashed across his face; instead, she just strokes them again, lightly, as though she can heal them with her touch, and kisses him back.

"I have to go soon," she mumbles into his mouth, and he pulls back with a questioning expression. She repeats herself, more intelligibly this time, adding, "Dalton and the others will be waiting for me."

"I heard you play," he tells her. "You're amazing."

This appreciation of her talent – with no strings attached, no _You're amazing, but_, no threat of what might happen even if she isn't amazing (it will happen now, anyway) – makes Risa go weak in the knees, makes her love him even more. Perhaps this – as he leans down to kiss her again, even more deeply this time – is what makes her decide, finally, to throw all her guard away.

She loves Connor. She can no longer allow herself to deny that. And if she is to be unwound soon anyway, and he even sooner, then she will love him with everything that she has. She will think of him with every cell in her soon-to-be-dismantled brain. She will carry memories of his face in her eyes, his voice in her ears, his scent in her nose, his taste on her tongue, and his feeling in every nerve ending in her body, no matter where they all end up. And she will love him so much and so hard, for as long as her heart is still in her body, that it may just burst on the operating table.

And wherever her soul goes, whatever happens to it after she is unwound, it will always have the knowledge and memory of Connor Lassiter, imprinted in love.


End file.
